Japan Enter Technical Recession After Contraction

Japan’s recovery is being held back by a shortage of skilled labour, a leading minister has claimed, after the world’s third-largest economy entered its fourth technical recession in five years.

Economics minister Akira Amari said a lack of workers available for public works projects worth billions of pounds restricted the government’s ability to bolster the economy.

Amari urged Japanese firms to use their record cash holdings to raise wages and increase capital spending to generate sustainable growth led by the private sector, instead of relying on government to always take the lead. He added that Tokyo was not considering a fresh stimulus.

The plea for big business to support the recovery came as official data on Monday showed Japan’s economy shrank by an annualised 0.8% in July to September after a deeper than previously estimated 0.7% contraction in the previous three months, providing the two consecutive quarters of declines needed to mark a recession.

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Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency
trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.

MarketPulse is a forex, commodities, and global indices analysis, and forex news site providing timely and accurate information on major economic trends, technical analysis, and worldwide events that impact different asset classes and investors.

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